No help for Sandwich erosion

SANDWICH — To the victor goes the spoils. Unfortunately, Sandwich beaches are on a losing streak.

GEORGE BRENNAN

SANDWICH — To the victor goes the spoils. Unfortunately, Sandwich beaches are on a losing streak.

Last week, Great Lakes Dredging & Dock Co., an Illinois-based contractor that does dredging for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was before the Sandwich Conservation Commission seeking approval to remove 22,000 cubic yards of material from an area of the Cape Cod Canal known as the East Mooring Basin.

The basin is across the canal from Sandwich Marina where ships can tie up to wait for passing traffic to move through the waterway.

Instead of dumping the spoils on sand-starved Town Neck Beach, Great Lakes is proposing to ship the materials to Boston Harbor, where the company is finishing another Army Corps project to cap an underwater landfill.

That's unfortunate, said Paul Schrader, an environmental advocate who has raised concerns about breaches in the dunes at Town Neck.

Photographs taken during a northeaster last month by beach committee chairman Eric Nelson show the marsh behind Town Neck filled with seawater and the boardwalk almost completely submerged. If a new inlet is formed as a result of Town Neck breaches, storm surge could be a real catastrophe, Nelson said.

"It could push water into our police station and fire station and so many upland dwellings," he said. "I see that as a real threat to our downtown area."

Sand from the dredging would provide a temporary fix until a long-term solution is in place, he said.

"I think Sandwich ought to get top priority on any sand removed from the canal or that area," Schrader said.

Jetties built at the end of the canal in 1906 to keep it from filling with sand too quickly have starved the beaches south of the canal, two separate studies determined.

For several years, Schrader, Selectman Randy Hunt and several other town leaders have been pushing the Corps to work with the town to repair gaping holes in the dunes.

"Obviously, anything we can do, that would be affordable to the town, to encourage the placement of the dredge spoils on Town Neck Beach would be beneficial," Hunt said.

But Town Manager George "Bud" Dunham said the town doesn't have the permits or the money to take the spoils from the latest canal project.

Great Lakes had proposed a $15,000 donation for shellfish propagation efforts with the town's Department of Natural Resources in light of the impact dredging would have on the nearby shellfish habitat, Dunham wrote in an e-mail. The commission rejected that arrangement.

The conservation commission will continue its deliberations on the project at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2 at the town offices at 16 Jan Sebastian Way, David DeConto, the town's assistant natural resources officer, said.

If the Army Corps had been the applicant, the town would not have any jurisdiction, DeConto said, but since it's a private contractor applying to do the dredging, the commission has a say over what impact the project might have on shellfish and other habitat.

The private company, not the Corps, is paying for the basin dredging project, Dunham said.

A spokesman for the Corps said if the spoils are not used for the Boston Harbor project, they would be dumped at sea in Cape Cod Bay. Federal permits have already been secured, he said.

A study to see if the Town Neck Beach can be used as a dumping ground the next time the canal is dredged has not yet been completed, Army Corps spokesman Timothy Dugan said.

"That study is ongoing but has no impact on the upcoming dredging," he said.